Building on the success of last year’s Alexa release, Amazon is now looking to introduce an “Alexa for Business”.

Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant received rave reviews when it was launched earlier this year.

While its closest competitors like Google and Apple are still struggling to catch up with the technology, Amazon has decided to up the ante and move its new Alexa for Business into the market.

The Alexa for Business will provide office workers with the ability to use the firm’s Echo smart speakers to set up meetings with colleagues, book conference rooms, and complete other organizational tasks, thus saving both personal and company time.

However, a major question has been raised over whether the corporate community will accept Alexa.

Speaking on the concerns of corporations, Geoff Blaber of CCS Insight stated that “Without a doubt privacy and security is the number one issue”.

He added that “Arguably that’s more important than the functionality”.

As such companies are likely to be suspicious about allowing Alexa access to its meeting rooms where sensitive information is certain to be under discussion.

Echos are forever listening and although Amazon states that they do not collect information unless the system is activated for the purpose, there are times when it happens by accident.

Additionally, the firm stores all recordings in order to find methods to make the service “smarter”.

The company has also suggested that it may share transcripts of these recordings with third-party developers which are looking to build apps for the platform.

However, the company has been quick to assure its clients that the only general information would be shared and sensitive matters would remain strictly confidential.

Thus, fear expressed by corporations is not unfounded. To combat the distrust, Blaber suggests that Alexa should set less ambitious goals before it moves onto more high flown things.

He stated that it would be wiser for Alexa to start with routine, unimportant office tasks before it takes control of more sensitive things.

Patricia Kellogg is a journalist who has held many editorial roles at numerous high-profile publishers – both offline as well as online. She has an experience of more than 10 years in editing and proofreading articles across a range of sectors. She is also well versed with handling academic journal articles, theses, technical manuals, press releases, reports, feature articles, web site content, promotional material, policy papers, and grant proposals.